Iraq forces reach key Mosul bridge

Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in west Mosul reached the city's southernmost bridge on Feb. 27, a key step in efforts to defeat the jihadists in their stronghold, a spokesman said, as thousands of civilians fled the fighting.

The move, a little more than a week into a major push on Mosul's west bank, could allow Iraqi forces to extend a floating bridge between the city's two halves and pile pressure on the jihadists.

"The Rapid Response force and the federal police have liberated Jawsaq neighborhood and now control the western end of the fourth bridge," Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told AFP.

The spokesman for the Joint Operations Command was referring to the southernmost of five bridges - all of which are damaged and unusable - across the Tigris River that divides the northern Iraqi city.

"That means the bridge is under control on both sides," said Rasool.

Government forces retook the east bank from ISIL a month ago, completing a key phase in an offensive on Mosul that began on Oct. 17, 2016, and has involved tens of thousands of fighters.

Engineering units will be expected to deploy a so-called "ribbon bridge" across the Tigris that will allow to connect the western side's active front lines to the already retaken east bank.

Rasool said that the Interior Ministry's Rapid Response force had now fully retaken two neighborhoods on the west bank, while forces from the elite Counter-Terrorism Service have retaken another further west.

"The street fighting is intense, these are populated neighborhoods," Rasool said. "But our forces are fighting deep in the west, the enemy is broken." 

Nearly a month after wresting back full control of the city's east...